Gossamer Threads

I asked a dear friend to share his top 5 images of love. He concluded with The Noiseless Spider by Whitman. My usual oppositions to Whitman faded as I realized the beauty of this poem and what it means to send my threads out.

A Noiseless Patient Spider

A NOISELESS, patient spider,
I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,—seeking the spheres, to connect them;
Till the bridge you will need, be form’d—till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.

And then my friend talked about the connection of joy and pain and shrugs when a gift is given. He says, "Pain is an inevitable part of the process, even when the anchor holds and we form that delicate gossamer connection. There's a relationship between love and loss and pain that I don't entirely understand, but I suspect that we all experience it, perhaps more often than we generally care to admit."

It makes me think of gossamer threads flung out at people I meet in an instant. It feels like such a delicate connection at the time. And later I realize how strong and important they were. Not really ephemeral at all. But pillars of concrete, even if they were built and destroyed in a moment. Like the strings in Calvino's city of Ersilla, telling the story of mankind through connecting hearts that have touched through hands on cheeks and blushing eyes meeting across rooms.